Home refrigerators equipped with ice making and ice dispensing capability have become popular and, to a significant degree, commonplace. In such refrigerators there is usually an ice dispenser door which, upon being activated to its opened position, allowes ice to be dispensed therepast and into a receiving vessel such as a glass or the like.
Heretofore, it has been common practice, in the prior art, to bring about the actuation of the ice dispenser door by means of a wax pellet actuator. That is, the actuator included a chamber and a relatively movable piston with such piston being operatively connected to the ice dispenser door as through, for example, suitable lever or other linkage means. The wax pellet was contained within the chamber and effectively constrained therein by the piston. A related electrically energized heating coil was placed into operative relationship with the wax pellet and when a person desired ice to be dispensed, the person would place the vessel (for receiving the ice) against an associated switch thereby closing the circuit through and energizing the heating coil.
As the heating coil heated the wax pellet, the wax expanded forcing the piston outwardly and through such motion and related linkage means cause the ice dispensing door (usually spring loaded toward its closed position) to open. This, then, would allow ice to be dispensed past the opened ice dispenser door and into the receiving vessel held by the person.
When the person received the desired amount of ice, into the receiving vessel, the person would move such receiving vessel away from the previously mentioned switch thereby terminating the energization of the heating coil and permitting the melted wax to again solidify thereby allowing the piston to retract into said chamber and the ice dispenser door to close.
In such prior art arrangements, provision was made whereby high electrical power was first provided in order to melt the wax, as to have the ice dispenser door open as quickly as possible, and then a reduced electrical power was provided to maintain the ice dispenser door open, for as long as required, without overheating the wax. Still, even with such provisions, the ice dispenser door of the prior art is relatively slow to open and too slow to close.
The invention as herein disclosed is primarily directed to at least reducing, if not eliminating, the aforestated prior art problems and to other related and attendant problems.